



<t " 


J4//V/4/5, C>JSC4, COMMON SENSE, 
AND THOMAS PAINE. 


A long foot-note in Mr. Conway’s “Life of Thomas 
Paine ” concerning myself and the Junius question 
requires my notice. Every point of argument in 
the note has been repeatedly refuted and now I 
proceed to demolish them once more. He says: 

Mr. W. H. Burr maintains that Paine wrote in the 
English Crisis (1775) under the name of “Casca.” As 
Casca’s articles bear intrinsic evidence of being written 
in London, the theory supposes Paine to have visited 
England in that year. But besides the facts that Kush 
had an interview with Paine near the middle of March, 
and Eranklin in October, the accounts of Aitkin, preserved 
in Philadelphia, show payments to Paine in May, July, 
and August, 1775. As Mr. Burr’s further theory, that 
Paine wrote the letters of Junius, rests largely on the 
identification with Casca, it might be left to fall with 
disproof of the latter. 

Answer: Paine was undoubtedly in Philadelphia 
in March, and had an interview with Dr. Kush; but 
tliere is no proof that he met Franklin in October. 
AVhat Paine said in Crisis, No. Ill, is this: “ In 
October, 1775, Dr. 'FxsiiDklmproposecl giving me such 
materials as were in his hands toward completing 
a history of the present transactions.” That pro- 




posal I claim was not made at an “interview.” 
The two men were in continual correspondence, 
most of the time being separated by the ocean. On 
March 4, 1775, Paine wrote from Philadelphia to 
Franklin in London as follows: 

Your countenancing me has obtained for me many 
friends and much reputation, for which please accept 
my sincere thanks. I have been appHed to by several 
gentlemen to instruct their sons on very advantageous 
terms to myself, and a printer and bookseller, a man 
of reputation and property, Robert Aitkin, has lately 
attempted a magazine, but having little or no turn that way 
himself, he has applied to me for assistance. He had not 
above six hundred subscribers when I first assisted him. 
We now have upward of fifteen hundred and daily in¬ 
creasing. I have not entered into terms with him. This 
is only the second number. The first I was not con¬ 
cerned in. 

The first number of the JPennsylvania Magazine 
was January. Paine tells Franklin that he was not 
concerned in that. And yet in the first number 
there appeared several anonymous contributions 
which were undoubtedly written by Paine—to wit: 
one on surveying, signed “P,” another on a new 
electric machine, signed “ Atlanticus,” a third on 
the utility of magazines, without signature; and it 
is supposed that he may have written a brief “ In¬ 
troduction to the Pennsylvania Magazine,'' dated 
January 24th. 

The February number, which Paine says he was 
concerned in, has three articles believed to have 
been written by him, one signed “Atlanticus,” 
another “Esop,” and a third an unsigned poem. 


By Traxiafcr. 
D ’06 


■ 8 — 


L 




The March number has three articles signed 
“ Atlanticus,” two of them being poems. 

In the April number I find but one probable 
contribution by Paine, namely “ Cupid and Hymen,” 
by “ Esop.” 

During all the rest of the year I discover only 
two contributions by Paine, both poems, by “ At¬ 
lanticus,” and both in the July number. 

None of these anonymous contributions after the 
March number required the presence of the writer 
in Philadelphia. And the same is true of any other 
communication that Mr. Conway or anyone else can 
identify as the production of Paine. 

The theory that Paine was the paid editor of the 
Pennsylvania Magazine is untenable for the fol¬ 
lowing reasons: 

1. The work of editing was next to nothing, the 
only article of an editorial nature being a brief in¬ 
troduction to the first number, which Paine says 
he was not concerned in. 

2. What, then, was the “ assistance ” he began to 
render after the first number? Was it not proba¬ 
bly canvassing for subscribers ? With that kind 
of assistance the number was increased more than 
nine hundred in one month. For that work 
Paine would be entitled to commission, even before 
entering into terms with Aitkin; and as late as 
March 4th, when he sends to Franklin the second 
number, and the time has come for printing the 
third, he has not yet entered into terms for the as¬ 
sistance he has begun to render. 

3. The entries in Aitkin’s account book of pay- 


— 4 — 


ments to Paine in May, July, and August do not 
prove that Paine was present to receive them. 

4. That his contributions were gratuitous was in 
keeping with all his other literary performances, it 
being an unswerving principle with him to take no 
pay for and make no profit from his literary work. 

5. Whatever engagement he may have made with 
Aitkin after March 4th, his sudden departure from 
this country before the middle of April was a thing 
he would strive to keep as secret as possible, and 
if, as was quite likely, Eobert Aitkin was a Scotch 
tory, Paine would have had the strongest motive to 
hoodwink him with the understanding that he 
would soon return and attend to his work in 
person. 

The identity of Casca with Paine was discovered 
by me in October, 1880, when I first saw an Ameri¬ 
can reprint of the Crisis of 1775. Four days 
later, as I was examining Sherwin’s “Life of Paine ” 
in the Congressional Library, I came to a note con¬ 
cerning an edition of Paine's Political Works pub¬ 
lished in England in 1796 in which the first num¬ 
ber of Paine’s Crisis was a reprint of “ A Crisis 
Extraordinary,” signed “American C. S.” (Common 
Sense, the first publication of which was in Lon¬ 
don, August 9, 1775, signed “Casca.” The biogra¬ 
pher Sherwin was puzzled, saying: “ It could not 
have been written by Paine, and its insertion in the 
edition published by Eaton can only be attributed 
to the ignorance of the person who furnished him 
the copy.” 

But I was still more astonished to find penciled 


— 5 — 


on the margin of the same page this note: “It is 
by Paine, but does not belong to the Crisis.'^ 

That penciled note I soon discovered was made 
by Librarian Spofford. He had no doubt that 
Casca was Paine, though he had never thought of 
identifying either writer with Junius. This identi¬ 
fication by the learned librarian of Congress, who 
was yet unwilling to believe that Paine was Junius, 
ought to have weight with those who rely more on 
authority than on their own judgment. 

Paine’s departure from America in March or 
April, 1775, I apprehend, was not to write articles 
for the (English) Crisis, but to procure saltpeter, 
gunpowder, and munitions of war for the impend¬ 
ing revolution. In October, 1775, General Wash¬ 
ington’s army, near Boston, had not five rounds of 
powder, and dared not advance one step against 
General Howe. In December, Franklin sent a 
letter to M. Dumas, in France, by a Mr. Storey, 
inclosing £100 to defray expenses in procuring a 
shipment of small arms, ammunition, and saltpeter. 
Previously, Charles Biddle was sent to France to 
procure munitions of war, and in January, 1776, he 
returned with a cargo of saltpeter. Hence I infer 
that Paine, first of all, went on a like mission in 
March or April, 1775, and returned about the end 
of the year, having secured a supply of war mate¬ 
rials, and ready to put to press his “Common 
Sense.” And I now challenge the discovery of 
evidence that he was in America during the greater 
part of the year 1775. 

Junius, in his “Dedication to the English Nation,” 


— 6 — 


said: “ The remedy will soon be in your power. If 
Junius lives you shall often be reminded of it.” 
Did he not fulfill that promise three years later^ 
when, as “Casca,” he fomented revolution in both 
England and America; and when again, from 1776 
to 1782, as “ Common Sense,” he helped to achieve 
the independence of this country All three writers 
were anonymous, all three did their literary work 
avowedly without pay or profit. 

The internal evidence of the identity of Casca 
with Junius is even stronger than that of Paine 
with Junius. Their style was varied to suit the 
circumstances. Junius wielded a Damascus blade; 
Casca a butcher’s cleaver; Common Sense a broad¬ 
sword. There is no fact to be found incompatible 
with tne identity of the three. 

Another of Mr. Conway’s objections to the Paine- 
Junius theory is as follows: 

During the period of Junius’s Letters (Jan. 21, 1769, to 
Jan. 21, 1772) Paine was occupied with his laborious 
duties as exciseman at Lewes, and with the tobacco mill 
from which he vainly tried to extort a living for himself 
and wife, and her mother. Before that period there was 
no time at which Paine could have commanded the 
leisure or opportunities necessary to master the political 
and official details known to Junius. 

Answer: Eor two years before the date of the 
first Junius letter, as now appears from his secret 
letter to ex-Premier Grenville, Oct. 20, 1768, the 
same writer, under various other signatures, had 
been agitating the public. The “Letters of Junius” 
aggregate about three hundred book pages ; his 


— 7 — 


“ Miscellaneous Letters ” not so mucli. The period 
co'^ered is more than five years. Only a few of the 
letters were elaborated and the average work was 
about one hundred and twenty pages a year. 

Paine had nothing to do with the tobacco mill 
before 1770, or more likely 1771, when he married 
the daughter of the deceased tobacconist Ollive, 
and helped the widow and daughter carry on the 
business, which was presumably small. 

His duties as exciseman did not occupy half his 
time, and from the time of ‘his first discharge as 
exciseman at Alford in 1765 until he reentered the 
service at Lewes in 1768 his only employment seems 
to have been as assistant teacher in London. And 
Paine himself says: “ I seldom passed five minutes 
of my life, however circumstanced, in which I did 
not acquire some knowledge.” 

Though stationed at Lewes he spent much of his 
time in London. He passed the whole winter of 
1772-1773, says Mr. Conway, trying to influence 
members of Parliament in favor of the cause of the 
excisemen. And in a letter to his superior officer, 
dated March 24, 1774, he says: “ I was in London 
almost all last winter ” (1773-1774). Furthermore, 
we have evidence of his being much of the time in 
London in 1769 and subsequently. In 1813, Mrs. 
Olivia Wilmot Serres attempted to prove that her 
pious uncle. Dr. Wilmot, was Junius. She says 
that in 1769 he frequently resided at the house of 
his brother-in-law Captain Payne, with whom an 
American named Fretland was on terms of intimacy. 
Fretland had concerns in the West Indies and fre- 


— 8 — 


quently sent to Dr. Wilmot various productions of 
that climate. Her uncle Wilmot had a servant 
named Middleton, and Captain Payne had a wife 
spoken of indifferently by the name of Olivia and 
Olive, suggestive of Miss Olive, who was married 
to Paine in 1771. 

Now, the private letters of Junius to his publisher 
Woodfall, first published in 1812, disclosed to Mrs. 
Serres two names by which the printer was directed 
to address his unknown correspondent, to wit: 
“ Mr. William Middleton ” (Priv. Let. No. 3, July 
15, 1769), and ‘‘ Mr. John Fretley, at the same coffee¬ 
house, where it is absolutely impossible I should be 
known” (Nos. 3 and 27). This coincidence of 
names, together with some mysterious entries in 
her uncle’s notebook in which the word “ Ju—s ” 
occurs several times, caused her to believe that Dr. 
Wilmot was Junius. But now the evidence points 
to Thomas Paine, the meagerness of whose biogra¬ 
phies prior to his coming to America render the 
gaps more important than the facts. How long 
Paine was a privateersman we do not know; and the 
fact that he was an expert seaman and was called 

commodore ” implies that much of the unknown 
gaps in his life was spent on the ocean, whereby he 
may have acquired a “moderate independence,” 
without which, says Junius in a private letter to 
Woodfall, “ no man can be happy nor even honest.” 
I myself have not the least doubt that such was 
Paine’s condition from the time he quit the sea. 
Hence his ability to write without pay or profit. 





- 9 -^ 


Mr. Conway further argues that Paine could not 
have been Junius, because: 

He declares that he had no interest in politics, which 
he regarded as a species of “ jockey-ship.” 

Answer: The “ Political Works ” of Paine, incom¬ 
plete, make two large volumes ; the “ Theological,” 
one small one. The Letters of Junius ” are polit¬ 
ical. But both writers were avowed non-partisans, 
and what Paine stigmatized as “ jockey-ship ” was 
partisan politics. 

The next objection of Mr. Conway is as follows: 

How any one can read a page of Junius and then one 
of Paine, and suppose them from the same pen, appears to 
me inconceivable. 

Answer: Which one of all the writers suspected 
to be Junius approaches him so nearly in style as 
Thomas Paine ? Said Lord Brougham in 1839 or 
1840, never dreaming that Paine was Junius: “ His 

style was a model of terseness and force. In this 
respect he comes nearer to our own remarkable 
Junius, than any known writer in the English 
tongue.” And Dr. Denslow in his “ Modern Think¬ 
ers,” 1880, speaking of Paine’s letter to Washing¬ 
ton, 1796, says: “It is so identical in style with 
portions of Junius that we cite parallel passages 
for comparison, though the unhesitating conviction 
that Paine wrote Junius will better result from the 
use of hundreds of passages than of two or three.” 

Did Mr. Conway expect to find in Paine’s writ¬ 
ings a literal repetition of the language of Junius, 


— 10 — 


who had promised, if he lived, to come again, and 
yet that his secret should die with him ? In 
“Junius Unmasked,” 1872, a multitude of passages 
from Junius and Paine are paralleled, to show sim¬ 
ilarity of style, sentiment, opinion, conduct, and 
character. These parallels number more than three 
hundred, and in the two or three instances where a 
difference in opinion appears, we have happily from 
Paine himself the proof of a change of views after 
1772. 

Twice only do I find any allusion by Paine to 
Junius. In Casca’s “Epistle to Lord Mansfield,” 
1775, he uses the expression, “galling Junius;” and 
in an anonymous tract entitled “ Prospects on the 
War,” 1787, detected five years later to be by Paine, 
he speaks of “ the brilliant pen of Junius,” which 
“in the plenitude of its rage, might be said to give 
elegance to bitterness.” “The generous rage of 
Junius” is an expression*found in that writer’s 
private note to his publisher, first brought to light 
in 1812. 

And now Mr. Conway has discovered and pub¬ 
lished in his book a letter from Paine to an apos¬ 
tate friend in 1795, never intended for another’s 
eye, in which scathing epistle “the generous rage 
of Junius ” reappears “ giving elegance to bitter¬ 
ness.” 

Lastly, to prove that Paine was not Junius, Mr^ 
Conway says: 

The reader need only refer to the facts of his life be¬ 
fore coming to America to acquit him of untruth in say- 


—11 


ing that he had published nothing in England, and that 
the cause of America made him an author. 

Answer: Did Junius publish his own letters? 
Woodfall and others who printed them never knew 
the author. And Junius says : ‘‘I did not expect 

more than the life of a newspaper.” Nor did Paine 
himself publish “The Case of the Officers of Ex¬ 
cise.” This is admitted by Mr. Conway, who 
naively tells us that the printing of four thousand 
copies by William Lee of Lewes in 1772 was not a 
publication (!) because “ it was a document sub¬ 
mitted to Parliament but never sold.” Further¬ 
more, Mr. Conway says that “the song on Wolfe and 
other poetical pieces, though known to the Head¬ 
strong Club in Lewes, were first printed in Phila¬ 
delphia.” The fact is that Paine’s Ode on General 
Wolfe was composed in 1759 at Sandwich, and was 
soon after published in ^he Gentleman^8 Magazine 
set to music, and became a popular song. 

In regard to the cause of America making Paine 
an author, that cause crops out from first to last in 
the Junius letters, even in the earliest of the mis¬ 
cellaneous ones, and is the principal theme of 
Casca. 

I have skipped and reserved for a finale Mac¬ 
aulay’s summary of the facts discoverable concern¬ 
ing the personality of Junius, quoted by Mr. Con¬ 
way. Only three of the five alleged facts need no¬ 
tice, to wit: That he was acquainted with the tech¬ 
nical forms of the secretary of state’s office; also 
with the business of the war office; and that he at- 


— 12 — 


tended the debates in the House of Lords and 
took notes of speeches. 

Answer: Whatever Junius may have known of 
the business of the departments of government, it 
is a common error that he was so intimately associ¬ 
ated or connected therewith as to be able to ac¬ 
quire much knowledge of state affairs. Junius in 
his seventh letter said, “ I am a plain unlettered 
man,” but nobody believed him. A little later, in a 
private letter to the printer, which was published 
by mistake, he speaks of his “rank and fortune,” 
manifestly ironical. A year later he opened a se¬ 
cret correspondence with John Wilkes. From 
these letters, first published in 1812, it appears how 
difficult it was for Junius to get information. He 
says: 

I speak from a recess which no human curiosity can 
penetrate. No man writes under so many disadvantages 
as I do. I cannot consult th% learned; I cannot directly 
ask the opinions of my acquaintance, and in the news¬ 
papers I am never assisted. 

No wonder that the late James Parton, in gather¬ 
ing material for a life of Franklin and becoming 
familiar with the lives of the men whom Junius 
descanted upon, “ discovered that he knew them 
not; that he was not within the circle of the well 
informed.” Mr. Parton might have learned as 
much from the private letters of Junius to John 
Wilkes; and the fact is further confirmed by the 
more recent discovery of secret letters of Junius to 
ex-Premier Grenville, in one of which he says: “ Until 
you are Minister, I must not permit myself to 


—13— 


think of the honor of being known to youand 
begs him “ to make allowances for a man who 
writes absolutely without materials or instruction.” 
This was three months before the signature Junius 
appeared. And when the Junius series was com¬ 
pleted he wrote to Lord Chatham, “ most secret,” 
saying, “ Retired and unknown, I live in the shade 
and have only a speculative ambition.” 

But now I hear the objector say: “ How is it pos¬ 
sible that the lowly exciseman of Lewes could have 
attended debates in Parliament?” I answer: We 
have his own word for it that he did. In 
No. VII, “ Common Sense ” says : 

I remember the late Admiral Saunders declaring in the 
House of Commons, and that in the time of peace, that 
the city of Madrid laid in ashes was not a suffici^t atone¬ 
ment for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English 
sloop-of-war. 

. o 

Turn to Junius’s private letter No. 29, dated 
Jan. 31, 1771, and you read: 

We hear that the ministry intend to move for opening 
both Houses of Parliament on Tuesday next, in the usual 
manner, being desirous that the nation should be exactly 
informed of their whole conduct in the business of Falk¬ 
land island. 

Again, in a postscript to same letter, written 
“ next day:” 

We hear that the ministry intend to move that no 
gentleman may be refused admittance into either House 
on Tuesday next. ... If they were to do otherwise 
it would raise and justify suspicions very disadvantageous 
to their own reputation and to the king’s honor. 


—14— 


What was the cause of that tremendous agita¬ 
tion ? It was “ the Spaniards taking off the rud¬ 
der of an English sloop-of-war ” in Port Egmont, 
West Falkland island^ between Keppel and Saun¬ 
ders islands. 

Turn now to Junius’s public letter No. 42, dated 
Jan. 30, 1771, and you will find the whole affair 
discussed in the same spirit that it is treated by 
“Common Sense” seven years later. The two 
passages are paralleled in “Junius Unmasked,” 
and in reverting to the subject I have unexpectedly 
found in the private letter of Junius to his pub¬ 
lisher strong presumptive evidence that on Tues¬ 
day, Feb. 5, 1771, Junius heard Admiral Saunders 
speak in the House of Commons the words quoted 
by Common Sense in Crisis^ No. VIL 

The affair at Port Egmont is further discussed 
by Junius in two letters signed “Vindex,” a part 
of the first one being suppressed by the publisher 
as too violent; but the suppressed portion has re¬ 
cently been brought to light in manuscript. It 
reflects severely upon the king, characterizing his 
surrender of the rights and honor of the crown of 
England as “ magnitudo infamicef and the king 
himself as a “stigmatized coward.” 

And here also I find that Woodfall apologized to 
“Vindex” for the suppression, directing his letter 
to “ Mr. John Fretley ” (Priv. Let. No. 33, Feb. 21, 
1771, note by Woodfall). 

The Spanish outrage was discussed by Junius 
under five or six other signatures, namely “ Do- 
mitian,” “ Philo-Junius,” “ Vindex,” et al. 




The House of Lords had excluded the public, ap¬ 
parently in consequence of a ludicrous report in the 
Public Advertiser^ Dec. 7, 1770, of 
loose and droll style of oratory, by Domitian. (S.ee 
Misc. Let. 79, 80, and 81, all by the same writer, 
who was Junius.) 

Thanks to Mr. Conway for causing me to dis¬ 
cover the important fact that on Feb. 5, 1771, the 
speech of Admiral Saunders in the House of Com¬ 
mons was listened to by Junius, who reappeared 
in America as “ Common Sense.” W. H. Buer. 

Washington^ D. C., Aug. 23, 1892. 


